Page 86 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

REVIEWS O BOOKS
O TV
O RADIO
O DIGITAL
O MOVIES

Norfolk, Mark Cocker’s
adopted county, is full of
nature reserves – here
nat
Blakeney Point, known
for its grey seals.

Theo Moye/A amy

SHAPED BY BOOK
OF THE
CONTRADICTION MONTH

Examining attitudes to Britain’s landscape.
Our Place
By Mark Cocker
Jonathan Cape £18.99 Darwin Comes to Town Earth to Earth
By Menno Schilthuizen By Stefan Buczacki
Quercus £20 Unicorn £15
Best known as one of our foremost nature
B
w
writers, Mark Cocker spent several years Nature is nothing if not The 10,000 or so churchyards
researching this tour de force. Meticulously adaptable. And as the human owned by the Church of England
r
f footnoted, stuffed with eye-opening species transforms natural amount to an area the size of a
s statistics and informed by dozens of habitats, that adaptability is small national park. Many are
i interviews with key figures, it’s a history of being tested to the full. ancient and have been enclosed
the environmental movement in Britain Challenges and opportunities for centuries, creating de facto
t
that explores w abound. If waste plastic is a nature reserves, often with flora
that explores why our countryside is as it is. While that
may sound dry, Cocker’s personal prose is by turns problem now, any species that long since lost from the
hopeful, melancholy and humorous. Yet unlike many develops the ability to digest it surrounding landscape. Amid
books on ‘green’ issues, this one is heartfelt without being will surely thrive. Schilthuizen’s an engaging blend of natural
a polemic. There are countless revealing, often moving invigorating and beautifully history, horticulture and poetry,
observations on everything from RSPB-branded napkins written overview of evolution in garden expert Stefan Buczacki
to subsidies, land ownership and the suicide of Cocker’s an urbanised world reveals our also delivers the clear message
best friend, ecologist Tony Hare. At the heart of the book towns and cities as epicentres that careful management
is the paradox of how a country with more members of for the creation of new species, is needed to preserve the
conservation organisations than almost any other can be new behaviours and new results of centuries of passive
the 28th most nature-depleted country on Earth. ecological relationships. churchyard conservation.
Ben Hoare Features editor Stuart Blackman Science writer Amy-Jane Beer Wildlife writer
86 BBC Wildlife Spring 2018